


note by note

by starlightment



Series: Gift Fics [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), College Student Lance (Voltron), Cute, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), Light Angst, M/M, Musician Keith (Voltron), Piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 12:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17981120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightment/pseuds/starlightment
Summary: Notes. Lance writes them, and Keith plays them. Together, it’s the start of a beautiful love song.





	note by note

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous/gifts).



> Written for a follower on tumblr <3
> 
> Make sure to click the links (open in separate tab!) and listen to the songs as you go along to get the full musical experience :)

**. . .**

 

“I love it!” Lance had exclaimed quite enthusiastically to his mother over a FaceTime call on the day he moved into his very first, very _adult_ apartment. He flips his phone around to show her the very empty four-hundred-square-foot living space, the very blank beige walls surrounding him, and the very complicated-looking coaxial mount where, later, he’s going to attempt to set up his television all by himself. “It’s got charm!”

And this so-called _charm_ is — as it turns out — about the _only_ thing Lance’s new apartment has going for it.

Because after only the first week, he realizes that his apartment is a dreadfully inconvenient forty-five minute bus ride away from campus. And his shower runs warm for about as long as it takes him to reach for his shampoo bottle before he gets brutally pelted by an ice-cold spray. And his air conditioning unit starts to _whir_ if it’s left on for too long, and it sounds uncannily like Pico, the McClain family cat, when Marco had accidentally crushed its tail with one of his Hot Wheels trucks. And the apartment walls are paper-thin — might as well be non-existent given how clearly Lance can hear the traffic roaring from outside, and his neighbor’s affinity for _Seinfeld_ re-runs across the hall, and the guy upstairs screaming at his Alexa device to _please call Rebecca at the office._

But, apparently, it’s charming. And cheap. And one-hundred-percent _his_. And Lance vehemently reminds himself of this on a blazing-hot September afternoon, as he’s trudging up four flights of stairs with two hefty bags of groceries in hand. Because the elevator is broken. _Of course._

He waddles up to his door, sets one of the bags on the ground, and uses his free hand to rummage around for his keys just as the sound of heavy footsteps starts storming down the hall. A swift flash of black leather zips by, and barely makes it to the next door over before Lance is pivoting around, perking up with intrigue. 

“Hey, 4B!” he chirps.

The flash of black leather turns out to be a young man, maybe around Lance’s age. He halts in front of the door, looking up through a curtain of dark fringe, decidedly startled. He’s wearing a chunky leather jacket (in _this_ heat, Lance wants to scoff), and his arms are clutching some worn library books to his chest. A Chopin compendium, and what appears to be a stack of handwritten sheet music, covered with more scribbles and cross-outs than actual notes.

“What’s up, man! You must be my next-door neighbor, huh?” Lance goes on, offering a dazzling grin. “Don’t worry — I don’t snore or anything. I’m actually a pretty chill guy when it comes to, like, living environments and stuff. The worst you’ll probably hear is some mediocre shower singing. S’kinda my thing. Anyway. My name’s —”

 _Slam_.

4B disappears into his apartment, and shuts his door so hard that the noise shivers through the hallway, through Lance’s bones.

“—Lance,” he finishes lamely, to no one. “Ooookay. Or not.” 

  

* * *

 

It’s a day or so later when Lance first _hears it_.

He’s boiling a pot of pasta on the stove for dinner. There’s rustling above him, and rustling below him. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then there’s — those same heavy footsteps plodding down the hall. The same definitive slam of 4B’s door. And then —

There’s pacing. Quick, short-tempered patters of feet that Lance can hear straight through the wall. He hears the banging of cabinet doors, more footsteps, an exasperated huff, and then —

The air shatters like glass, and the floorboards quake beneath him as the room explodes with wild, [bombastic music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV7RkEL6oRc).

… _What_.

It’s a piano, so clear and resounding that it couldn’t possibly be a recording. It’s real. It’s live. And it’s _loud_. Lance nearly leaps out of his own skin at the unexpected surge of it, snapping his head toward the far wall so abruptly that he swears he feels something crack in his neck. It’s a chaotic storm of a song — raucous, and frenzied, and Lance has a hard time believing that a human being’s hands can actually move that fast. The tempo grows steadily more crazed, more intense. The keys sound like they’re being plunked harder, _angrier_ , until a sour chord disrupts the maddening melody. A frustrated growl. Another clashing chord. And _then_ —

Nothing. Everything stops.

And Lance stands there, stock-still in the kitchen, his heart pounding and his ears still ringing from such a riotous cacophony. What — was that? A prank? A hallucination? 

Another miserable huff from 4B proves that’s not the case. Lance looks down at his gurgling pot of pasta, then back over at the far wall, gone eerily silent. And Lance doesn’t have to be a musician to know that something must be wrong. _Very_ wrong, from the sound of it.

So he shuts off the burner, and, impulsively, marches over to his desk to grab a pad of sticky notes. He just stares at the paper for a while, unsure of what to write or _why_ he’s writing it at all. _Hey, dude, I think you just brought Beethoven back to life and then killed him again_. Or, _are your fingers still intact after that?_ It all sounds so… cheeky.

 _‘Alright, Mozart. So you’re pretty damn amazing’_ , is what he settles on — with ‘4A’ and a smiley-face tacked onto the end.

And before he can think twice about it, he creeps down the hall, and slips it under 4B’s door.

 

* * *

  

Lance doesn’t expect a reply. It was just a silly whim. A trivial charity. A random act of kindness. That’s all. He doesn’t expect _anything_.

But that doesn’t stop him from holding his breath when he opens his front door the following morning, only to find nothing but a small care package from his mother waiting for him.

 _Nope_. He doesn’t expect a single thing.

 

* * *

 

But it _would_ be kind of nice if — 

  

* * *

  

The next day, when Lance is hunched on the couch, knee-deep in homework and study materials, he hears Vivaldi. A few days after that, when he’s folding clothes in the laundry room, it’s Bach. Sonata after sonata, each more turbulent and emotional than the last. There’s more stomping, more huffing, more grunts of agitation.

The days drift by like a lingering fog.

And Lance — because he’s _Lance_ — ends each one with a note for 4B.

  

* * *

  

_‘Wow… Just wow.’_

_‘You really outdid yourself with that one.’_

_‘I could listen to you play all night.’_

_‘Can’t believe how lucky I am to live next to you.’_

 

* * *

  

Lance still doesn’t expect anything.

But it _would_ be kind of nice if —

— if he knew he was making this guy’s life a little bit brighter. _Just a little_. 

  

* * *

  

Apparently, Lance’s heater works about as well as his air conditioning. Meaning, it doesn’t really. So when the crispness of fall gives way to the bitter bite of winter, he dons his warmest sweater, his fuzziest socks, and fixes himself a third mug of hot chocolate. He flits around his kitchen to the sound of Ariana Grande belting through his bluetooth speaker, humming along to the tune, and sprinkles a generous layer of mini marshmallows onto the surface of his hot chocolate when he’s _rudely_ interrupted by —

[More Beethoven](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfF0zHeU3Zs). _Wow_. Lance’s newfound familiarity with eighteenth century composers is truly frightening.

He sighs with a touch of amusement, and turns around to crank the volume up on his speaker. “Nice try, piano man,” he says, though he doubts he can even be heard. “We’re rocking out to _my_ tunes today.”

But as Ariana’s voice starts wailing louder from the speaker, so does Beethoven from next door, and it takes Lance a full second to realize it. Maybe he’s just imagining the way that erratic melody suddenly sounds firmer, like every key is being pressed with stubborn determination, easily drowning out the speaker’s pounding bass. It clangs around inside Lance’s body, pushing against his skin like he may burst at the seams, but he manages to do what any logical, _mature_ adult would do in this situation.

He turns _his_ music up _even more_.

From there, it’s a back-and-forth battle. 4B matches every tick of volume from the speaker with his own skillful hands. Lance narrows his eyes at the far wall — hoping to glare a hole right through it, maybe, so he can reprimand that musical madman in person — as the Ariana song bleeds into the next. And the next, and the next. Lance’s playlist keeps cycling through — Bruno Mars. Kesha. Maroon 5. All of his heavy-hitters, thwarted by Beethoven.

Lance is just about to switch things into high-gear with some early-career Britney Spears when he hears — and _feels_ — his floorboards vibrate with three irritated pulses.

“Hey! Pipe down!” the man downstairs bellows at the top of his lungs.

And it has Lance flinching back to reality; the one that’s currently shaking and rattling due to all the noise. He scrambles for the speaker, and shuts the whole thing down with the press of a button. “My bad!” he cries.

The piano music fades back to a normal volume, then, and Lance has to smirk. _This guy._

He saunters over to the wall that separates them, knocks a fist against the sorry excuse for a barrier, and calls out, “Wouldn’t kill you to play something _fun_ for a change, y’know!”

4B responds with a pompous rendition of the 9th Symphony.

  

* * *

  

It’s hard to believe, but midterms are suddenly right around the corner, and so Lance comes home with about six reference books, a venti triple-shot espresso from Starbucks, and a throbbing headache that beats behind the blues of his eyes. Such is the life of a grad student.

He hunkers down on the couch with his supplies, and doesn’t even notice as the hours pass by, as the afternoon sun starts setting just outside his muggy window. He just stares at his laptop screen, dry-mouthed and twitchy from the coffee, red-eyed and braindead from the studying. There are voices talking down the hall, and someone vacuuming upstairs, but Lance — just like the rest of the white noise that constantly plagues this apartment complex — has learned to tune it out.

The piano suddenly [rings to life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVCpDa6ymtQ) next door.

That, too, is something that Lance has learned to tune out. _Sometimes_.

Now is _not_ one of those times. Because when Lance pulls his head out of his laptop long enough to listen — _really_ listen — he realizes something rather odd.

He knows this song. Like, he actually _knows_ it. The melody strikes a chord of strong familiarity, and he finds his mind singing along to the well-known chorus, as if on instinct, and he can’t _fucking_ believe…

— _Despacito_.

Lance whirls over his shoulder, and stares at the wall in disbelief. The music plays on — all jazzy, and fast-paced, and lively, and _fun_ — turning the primitive pop tune into something spectacularly impressive.

And then Lance is laughing. Full-bodied, wholehearted laughter just because — wow. _This guy_. His head flops back onto the couch cushion, his eyes seal shut, his muscles unfurl, and he laughs, and laughs, and _laughs_ for what feels like the first time in weeks. 

Later that evening, he slides a note under 4B’s door that reads: ‘ _Now that’s what I’m talking about, Mozart.’_

 

* * *

  

More studying, more coffee, more headaches. Midterms start feeling more like a snarling beast looming over his shoulder, and less like a distant nightmare.

He spends most nights on the couch, surrounded by textbooks, with his laptop still open in his lap when he passes out where he sits. He goes to class, he comes home, he works. _Repeat_.

And all the while, he can’t help but notice there’s no music.

No Beethoven, no pop songs, not a single melody.

Almost an entire week goes by.

 _‘Where’d you go, Mozart?’_ , says Lance’s most recent note, along with a hand-drawn sad face.

A few days more.

Nothing but silence from 4B.

 

* * *

  

Midterms happen.

They come and go, just like that, and —

— _Shit_.

 

* * *

 

No. No, no, no, no.

Lance _studied_.

He worked _hard_.

He _tried_.

So how did this happen?

A fifty- _fucking_ -percent — on a midterm he was sure he would ace. Now he might not even pass the class. Now he might have to spend money he doesn’t have on summer school, just so he can graduate on time. Now he’ll have to pick up the phone, and explain to his mother: _hey, mom, so funny story_ —

How pathetic.

 

* * *

  

 _‘Sorry to bug you’_ , Lance scribbles onto a torn sheet of paper. ‘ _But do you take requests? Clair de Lune is my favorite.’_

He doesn’t know why he slips it under 4B’s door, but he does. And he waits. 

  

* * *

 

He doesn’t expect anything.

But it _would_ be kind of nice if… _maybe_ —

  

* * *

 

Later that evening, when Lance tucks himself away under his bedsheets — hiding from the world, from school, from his downward-spiraling thoughts — everything goes quiet. It’s one of those astoundingly rare nights when there’s no muffled television, or chattering voices, or whirring AC units. Like the entire earth is in mourning.

And Lance thinks that he might not’ve minded all the noise tonight. At least then he wouldn’t feel so alone.

He grips at his cold bedsheets, eyes sewn shut, and forces himself to focus on nothing but the rhythm of his beating heart, the pass of his breath, in and out of his lungs, and…

… [A melody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNcsUNKlAKw).

It trickles by, floating like a breeze, so delicate and graceful that Lance thinks it must be a dream. But it’s not. And he knows it when he feels the music settle into his bloodstream like a sweet wine, smooth and warm and real, and it swarms him all at once.

4B, after weeks of dismaying silence, is playing _Clair de Lune_.

And it’s unlike anything Lance has ever heard before. It’s so gentle, so tender, so gut-wrenchingly _gorgeous_ that is almost physically hurts. Maybe his soul is crying. Maybe his heart is aching. The ebb and flow of the music guides him out of bed, and across the floor, unsteady on his feet, but unafraid to fall.

He approaches the wall. The paper-thin wall. The only thing keeping him from watching as 4B’s nimble fingers dance along the keys with a featherlight touch, his entire body swaying to the melody’s wave-like swell.

It’s dumb. It’s dumb, but he wants to _watch_. He wishes he could _see_ the way he moves, and _feels_ the music.

Lance presses his palm to the drywall’s surface, a tangible reminder of all that stands between them, and for one miraculous moment, he swears he can feel 4B’s heartbeat pulsing like a lifeline beneath his fingertips, thrumming gently like the song that fills his ears. A connection. _Magnetism_. He shivers, head to toe.

And, eventually, he sinks to the floor. He ends up falling asleep right there, with his back pressed up against the wall, as the music carries him far, far away.

  

* * *

  

Early morning sun blares through the half-closed window blinds when Lance wakes up on the floor. He starts brewing a pot of coffee, and then goes to tuck a note under 4B’s door.

_‘Thank you.’_

  

* * *

 

After that, 4B falls silent again.

Lance will hear the occasional shuffle of feet, or creak of a mattress, but — no piano. And Lance is overwhelmed by the realization that he misses it. A lot.

Winter is in full force, and, just outside the window, the city is painted white with a thin dusting of snow. Lance is safely inside, bundled up in his too-cold apartment, staring at the snowflakes as they splatter and cling to the glass.

That’s when he [hears it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwpZjzfiPR4).

Every system in his body flickers to life, igniting him, note by note, chord by chord. This song, Lance realizes, is new. It’s strong and confident, but not rowdy like Beethoven. It’s flowing and passionate, but not melancholy like _Clair de Lune_. It’s rich, and stunningly simple, and brimming with heart. A piece of himself, maybe.

And it has Lance hurrying to his desk, scouring the drawers for a sticky note, a sheet of paper, _anything_. He grabs an old receipt, and scribbles a quick _‘glad to have you back’_ before bolting for the door. He swings it open wide, eyes catching on something right by his feet. Lance promptly freezes in place.

A neatly folded piece of paper, it appears.

With nervous fingers he unfurls it, revealing a note, in a small, simple scrawl: _‘This one’s for you.’_  

His grip is so tight that he’s unknowingly crumpling the paper at the edges, staring back and forth between the written words before him and the far wall behind him. A breath punches out of his lungs, escaping him, emptying him.

Then he’s shoving both of the notes into his pocket, and moving down the hall like his life depends on it, led by the lilting melody and the thundering in his chest.

He steps up to apartment 4B and, with three quick raps of his knuckles, he finally knocks.


End file.
